Mad News #17 📰 Backpack Receives A Facelift
Backpack temporarily drops support for features in favor of added security, Mad Lads minted an additional 26K+ NFTs and Jakey films acts that are illegal in 12 countries.
In this week’s Mad News 🗞️
Backpack’s first major update
DRiP channel airdrops 26K cNFTs
LAD OF THE WEEK: degenpoet
Jakey’s new MAD cooking show
the *Fock It.* mentality
Superteam Mexico partners with professional football team
…and much more!
View the full Table of Contents here.
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Important dates 🗓️
October 15 - Hyperdrive Hackathon ends
October 31 - Breakpoint begins
November 1st - Mad Lads holders party
November 3rd - Super League football tournament (Mad Lads FC)
Two steps forward, one step back
Armani Ferrante dropped a masterclass thread that tackled the WHAT, HOW & WHY behind the major Backpack update.
Read the complete unadulterated thread here.
The highlights:
The first and most obvious change is the removal of in-wallet messaging, usernames, friendships and hookable push notifications.
Although these experiences were fresh, new, exciting, and created much of the magic of the original Mad Lads mint, we think that in the context of "X" - coming in October - we need to put them aside and come back to them at a later date.
Our solution is simple: password unlocking is now required, lazily, just in time (though you can make it more aggressive if you want via settings).
If you go to send a token and you haven't unlocked yet, the extension will prompt you for a password.
We plan to add more chains in the future. Whether it's other SVM chains. Cosmos. Bitcoin. Avalanche. Aptos. Sui. Or whatever.
We've put in a lot of work into making this easy, and so we would love for those integrations to come from external contributors via PRs into the repo.
We ended up ripping out our entire read data layer, and replacing it with a new graphQL API that provides a uniform interface across all blockchains and that can easily be extended to use multiple data providers on the backend.
Fast, simple, and infrastructure anyone can run if they want.
Read the complete unadulterated version here on Twitter.
Backpack’s first DRiP Drop
The Backpack DRiP Haus channel launched on September 22nd and it racked up 26k+ subscribers before the first airdrop on Monday.
Subscribe to the Backpack DRiP channel for weekly NFT drops.
Backpack’s DRiP drop would not have been viewable in the Backpack wallet before the recent updates.
LAD OF THE WEEK: Degen Poet a.k.a. Solana Poet a.k.a. #FreeDegenPoet
degen poet introduced Mad Lads artwork to DRiP Haus shortly after the collection minted the true fruit of his labor was not viewable in the Backpack wallet until cNFT support was added last week.
degen poet is a popular web3 artist that brings IRL type writer creations to life with the blockchain. poet’s notoriety began to skyrocket after DRiP began airdropping the artwork to hundreds of thousands of wallets.
He dropped the first Mad Lads themed piece on April 24th, just days after the collection minted.
He followed that up with a platonic love letter to becc.
The 3-part series was finished with a not-so-platonic love letter to the Skulls trait.
Follow degen poet today or risk three years of bad luck.
BAM! Jakey tries fine dining
Fear was not a factor in the first episode of the MAD Cooking Show.
Jakey choked down tarantulas, black scorpions and a bowl of dried beetles in the name of entertainment alongside Mad Chef Sideneck.
Jakey was the first addition the The Roster and has released three full length MAD MOVIES and behind the scenes vlogs.
Catch up on all of Jakey’s content on the Mad Lads YouTube channel.
Winter is coming, anon
Roster members Tyler Larronde and Nick Kapule reign supreme over big waves in the ocean, now it looks like someone is taking over the slopes.
Mad Lads dropped yet another teaser with the caption “Winter is coming.”
October cannot come soon enough!
X stands for October
How many different locations can you count in this Backpack teaser video?
The team released this teaser in a post with just one emoji.
🌏
Mad Meetup is one month away
130 Lads, Lassies and their +1’s are going to the Mad Breakpoint party.
There are still slots available but they are going fast - RSVP here today.
Lads form football team for Big Brain Super League tournament
Panels, parties and penalties.
Mad Lads FC will be competing at the SBB Super League soccer tournament on Nov 3rd around lunchtime.
Breakpoint is going to be a busy time for the Mad Lads community.
We are still looking for Lads for the following positions:
Striker
Midfield
Defender
Goalkeeper
Mad Lads community embraces the “Fock it.” mentality
The Mad Lads community is filled with people doing amazing things across the world. Some build, some create, some lead powerhouse careers, others are flex their skills.
Mad Sky Diver
Alpha.$ol took to the skies after gaining inspiration from Jakey’s MAD MOVIE 2: Pursuit of the Extreme.
I’ll never understand why someone wants to jump out of a perfectly fine airplane with the goal of throwing yourself at the ground.
Pretty fockin’ mad if you ask me.
Mad Published Author
John Ennis is a blockchain builder that was onboarded to the Mad Lads post-mint.
This Mad Lad just published *another* book on data science.
Consumer science is a branch of market research focused on the consumer experience of products as opposed to the brand messaging
-John Ennis
John heads up the web3 platform NeoSwap AI, an AI powered trading tool focusing on crypto trades and Ordinal auctions.
Mad Fan Artist
Avid Mad News readers will recognize Swasti from previous issues.
She has created 1/1 canvas paintings of our favorite holders like Armani Ferrante, MadCrab David and, yours truly, the Mad Blogger.
Mad 3D Modeler
Mad Lads brand growth is limited only by the imagination of holders and Clar◎is is bursting with ideas.
3D Game-ready MadLads commissioned by spacemandev sometime ago for his web3 game project.
Alberts and Galaxy subcommunities laugh in face of bear market
The Alberts subcommunity has given away more than $2500 in prizes through their Mad Media Mayhem missions.
You can learn more about the missions and how to play in the Mad Lads Discord.
Mad Galaxies are hitting the runway with custom made apparel by 527merch.
You can still buy the bespoke hoodies here.
Mad Saga Engravings
Solana Mobile has shipped thousands of Saga cellphones to every corner of the globe.
sAd dropped a photo of his Saga engraved with an image of his Mad Lad NFT.
Compressed NFTs reign supreme on Solana
It has been about six months since cNFTs (compressed NFTs) launched on Solana. Since then 52M+ cNFTs have been minted on the blockchain.
There are more than 2x the amount of wallets holding cNFTs than there are traditional NFTs.
H Y P E R D R I V E attracts all 75 Solana devs
The amount of registered Hyperdrive Hackathon builders continues to grow even as we approach the submission deadline (two weeks away).
Just two weeks ago there were only 3,500 registrants.
Part of this adoption is enabled by infrastructure providers like Helius.
Buildstations provide an IRL touchpoint for hackathon participants
Although the H Y P E R D R I V E Hackathon is an online event, the Superteams have arranged IRL workspaces for builders to meetup.
Build Station Berlin is back
Doors re-opened on September 25th and dozens of builders have joined.
In addition to the $1M in hackathon prizes, builders have the opportunity to compete for a pool of $35K in Berlin Demo Day prizes as well.
London Buildstation opens doors on October 2nd
Superteam UK is hosting their first buildstation and the week is packed with keynotes, technical workshops, non-tech workshops as well as gaming competitions and after hours events.
How to launch a synthetic assets platform on Solana
Solana Labs is looking for developers who want to build on tom of the synthetic assets smart contract.
Solana Labs has published an open-source reference implementation that developers can use to launch their own synthetic assets platform.
You can submit your application here.
Solana Foundation is the newest CVA Corporate member
Solana has joined the Crypto Valley Association which is “Switzerland’s leading blockchain & crypto ecosystem”.
We unite the world’s top blockchain and crypto professionals and companies. Together, we work to drive growth, collaboration, and integrity across the global blockchain economy.
Encode’s 8 Week Solana Accelerator
Encode Club is accepting applications for a chance to “transform your Solana Hackathon of Bootcamp project into a thriving startup”.
Accelerate your project to become a startup
Weekly workshops and 1–1 sessions
Our team helps you with everything from technical building, design, product testing and fundraising
Assisted by mentors, leading investors and entrepreneurs in the space
After the accelerator, we help you go full-time and raise funding
Learn more about the event and apply here.
Hacker House India turned out to be a blazing success
The hacker houses in Bengaluru and Mumbai ended up being some of the most hyped events that Solana has hosted this year.
Thousands and thousands of blockchain enthusiasts applied to join but only a few hundred were able to get in at any given time.
Superteam Mexico scores by partnering with professional football team
Superteam Mexico partnered with Xolos, a professional football team in Mexico’s top-tier Liga BBVA MX league.
This alliance combines community engagement with cutting-edge technology…bringing its dedicated fanbase closer through unique NFT collectibles, community-focused activities, and local hackathons, all made possible by the technology of Solana.
#SolanaSpainTour debuts in Madrid to a packed house
More than 50 builders attended the first #SolanaSpainTour event in Madrid. The packed session was the first of four events spread throughout the country.
Next up is Malaga, then Alicante and finishing up in Barcelona.
From hands-on workshops to networking sessions, we're set to unite, inspire, & empower the Spanish tech community. Whether you're a Rust pro or a blockchain enthusiast, there's something for everyone. Let's build the future together!
- Heavy Duty Builders
Superteam Malaysia’s first popup event
Superteam Malaysia is one of the newest members of the Superteam squad (their X account launched in August 2023) and they wasted no time scheduling their first meetup.
Hundreds (250+ registered) turned out for the multi-day event hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sponsorship was stacked with contributions from:
Podcast Corner
Podcasts have infiltrated web3 culture, they are some of the most bountiful sources of alpha and perspective from your favorite builders.
Chewing Glass
Chase Barker hosted the Chewing Glass podcast with guest Brian Long to chat about “Solana’s early days, Solana infrastructure & maintaining a validator for the network”.
Logan Jastremski Podcast
Logan invited Greg Osuri on to talk about building “the super cloud of GPUs” with the Akash Network.
Lightspeed
Helium’s Lightspeed podcast had crypto big brains Joe McCann and Mike Dudas on to talk about the Solana thesis.
The Y-Axis Pod
A blast from the past, Armani Ferrante was the first guest on Tristan Yver’s podcast.
Table of Contents
Mad Lads & Backpack
LAD OF THE WEEK: Degen Poet a.k.a. Solana Poet a.k.a. #FreeDegenPoet
Lads form football team for Big Brain Super League tournament
Alberts and Galaxy subcommunities laugh in face of bear market